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Movie Review: Surrogates
Sep. 30th, 2009 12:30 amMy local newspaper offered a review of "Surrogates" that was so far off the mark that I thought I'd use it as my text for today's sermon.
If you didn't know any better, you'd swear that both the cast and crew of "Surrogates" were trying to make the worst movie possible.
If I didn't know any better, I'd swear that this movie had been reviewed by a brain-damaged wolverine.
This science-fiction thriller is inept in nearly every facet of filmmaking, from performances to direction to screenwriting to the stunt work.
I'm assuming that you were stoned out of your mind when you watched this film, or that perhaps you spent 3/4 of it in the bathroom with terminal diarrhea and missed every good sequence.
And if that wasn't bad enough already, the material borrows too heavily from the Terminator and Matrix movies, as well as several well-regarded Isaac Asimov novels. (As such, it's vastly different from its heady source material, the comic book miniseries by Robert Venditti and Brett Weldele.)
Funny. I didn't see a single connection to either franchise. The links to Asimov's "I, Robot" are thematic at best.
Worse yet, it's a complete snore — that is, except for a few unintentional hilarious moments. Most of those have to do with horrible hairpieces and appliances that are worn by two of the more prominent male stars. That includes Bruce Willis, who wears unconvincing hair in his role as an FBI agent named Greer.
By Mogg's silken sixpack, it's a movie about robots. Bruce Willis looks awesome as himself, and his surrogate is supposed to look artificial. And I've seen dudes with hair that looks twice as bad as the dreads you're referring to. For me, both worked the way they were supposed to.
<A lot of plot analysis snipped>
But Willis continues to be monotone and emotionless even when he's playing the human "operator." As Greer, he's uninteresting and pretty blase.
Totally false. I thought Willis actually did more acting in this one than he did in "Unbreakable" (which I also thought was a great movie.)
As for Rhames, he's wearing what appears to be one of the dreadlocked wigs used in the 2000 cinematic disaster "Battlefield Earth."
See above. I didn't see "Battlefield Earth", so I have no opinion.
This is a smart, fairly-intense action film with a good heart, that asks all the right questions about a future that is not so far from the realm of possibility. At the end of the show, I found myself wondering which route I would have taken. It was entertaining and thought-provoking; even though at 88 minutes it's a short film, I certainly got my money's worth.
Overall Rating: 8.5 out of 10 stars
If you didn't know any better, you'd swear that both the cast and crew of "Surrogates" were trying to make the worst movie possible.
If I didn't know any better, I'd swear that this movie had been reviewed by a brain-damaged wolverine.
This science-fiction thriller is inept in nearly every facet of filmmaking, from performances to direction to screenwriting to the stunt work.
I'm assuming that you were stoned out of your mind when you watched this film, or that perhaps you spent 3/4 of it in the bathroom with terminal diarrhea and missed every good sequence.
And if that wasn't bad enough already, the material borrows too heavily from the Terminator and Matrix movies, as well as several well-regarded Isaac Asimov novels. (As such, it's vastly different from its heady source material, the comic book miniseries by Robert Venditti and Brett Weldele.)
Funny. I didn't see a single connection to either franchise. The links to Asimov's "I, Robot" are thematic at best.
Worse yet, it's a complete snore — that is, except for a few unintentional hilarious moments. Most of those have to do with horrible hairpieces and appliances that are worn by two of the more prominent male stars. That includes Bruce Willis, who wears unconvincing hair in his role as an FBI agent named Greer.
By Mogg's silken sixpack, it's a movie about robots. Bruce Willis looks awesome as himself, and his surrogate is supposed to look artificial. And I've seen dudes with hair that looks twice as bad as the dreads you're referring to. For me, both worked the way they were supposed to.
<A lot of plot analysis snipped>
But Willis continues to be monotone and emotionless even when he's playing the human "operator." As Greer, he's uninteresting and pretty blase.
Totally false. I thought Willis actually did more acting in this one than he did in "Unbreakable" (which I also thought was a great movie.)
As for Rhames, he's wearing what appears to be one of the dreadlocked wigs used in the 2000 cinematic disaster "Battlefield Earth."
See above. I didn't see "Battlefield Earth", so I have no opinion.
This is a smart, fairly-intense action film with a good heart, that asks all the right questions about a future that is not so far from the realm of possibility. At the end of the show, I found myself wondering which route I would have taken. It was entertaining and thought-provoking; even though at 88 minutes it's a short film, I certainly got my money's worth.
Overall Rating: 8.5 out of 10 stars
